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Hyundai is currently preparing for this year’s IDEA Festival, to be held in Seoul, South Korea. The 2013 theme will focus on research and development for customers, developing new ways to meet customers’ future needs. Contestants are planning ahead for the event, working hard on alternative methods of mobility.

The festival has been an annual event since 2010, giving Hyundai engineers the opportunity to explore creative, bizarre and advanced transport. This year will showcase a new and improved egg car, spare tyre electric bike, portable transforming car, five-jointed car, road car/bike, wind bike and a multi-rotor flying car. Prototypes are currently being built.

Here’s the details on last year’s winner, the E4U egg car. The E4U gets its name from its egg shape, designed to fit only one, standing driver. The four Es stand for egg, evolution, electricity and eco-friendliness. It’s meant to be driven in urban areas at low speed, requiring careful control and thoughtful manoeuvring. Drivers manipulate the vehicle through speed and steering controls located inside the egg structure. The egg then pivots, tilts and spins to gain speed and change direction. To park the E4U egg car, a rear leg extends, holding it upright.

Perhaps the strangest prototype set to appear in this year’s IDEA Festival is the portable transforming car, which drivers can pack up and take with them. The weirdest aspect is, believe it or not, that the vehicle is manipulated entirely by mind control.

In comparison, the wind bike sounds conservative. This revolutionary bike uses battery power to keep the motor running, and harnesses wind to power the propellers.

The five-jointed car can climb up steps and has a turning circle of only one metre.

Needless to say, the IDEA Festival is sure to alter our current perception of mobility.

Hyundai, South Korea’s biggest car manufacturer, has long advocated green, low emission vehicles, too – changing the way we think about the automotive industry.

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